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Preview: 'Rings,' 'Beauty and the Beast' and other first films of 2017

It's a hodgepodge season of movies. Here are some worth highlighting.

By Jeanine Fritz

Camera Film Writer

Posted:
01/27/2017 09:44:53 AM MST

Updated:
01/27/2017 10:00:48 AM MST

Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington in "Get Out," (Universal Pictures)

If your New Year's resolution was to watch more movies starring Dane DeHaan, J.K. Simmons or Brie Larson, you're in good shape, friend. The first few months of the year typically feature films that fall into a few categories: action flicks not willing or able to compete in the summer, dramas not willing or able to fight for Oscars, and movies that don't seem to fit into a season otherwise.

This tends to be the least splashy quarter of the year in film, but these first few months are not without their charms. Check out Hugh Jackman in "Logan," the first Wolverine flick to nab an R rating; Haitian director Raoul Peck's highly-praised documentary "I Am Not Your Negro"; Keanu Reeves in "John Wick 2"; the new "Ghost in the Shell" starring Scarlett Johansson; the dark drama of "The Zookeeper's Wife"; or Jordan Peele's first feature, the horror flick "Get Out." (It genuinely looks terrifying.) If you're looking for some lighter fare, try "The LEGO Batman Movie" or the Dutch romance flick, "Tulip Fever." Here, for your perusal, are all the movies hitting theaters this spring that weren't super foreign or only gonna be screened in somebody's basement in Denver for a single night. Release dates are subject to change.

January

Jan. 27

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

R | Sci-Fi

Milla Jovovich reprises her most famous role as Alice, the zombie-slaying security operative forever battling the evil Umbrella biotech corporation and the unnatural monsters it produces. (Like the six "Resident Evil" movies, all written by Mr. Jovovich, Paul W. S. Anderson.) I think it might be fun to hole up in a cabin somewhere and watch the entire franchise in the same weekend.

Gold

R | Drama

Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey and a really "good" bald cap) takes geologist Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramirez) into the jungles of Indonesia in search of a gold mine, which they find, and then shady business ensues in this flick directed and co-written by Academy Award-winning writer Stephen Gaghan ("Syriana"). What's more interesting to me is this obsession Hollywood has with casting astronomically good-looking people (Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Christian Bale, Jake Gyllenhaal) and then going to a lot of trouble to make them look like normal humans.

Bastards

R | Comedy

Ed Helms and Owen Wilson star in a movie that might as well have starred Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly about two brothers who discover at their mother's (Glenn Close) wedding that their long-dead father is not only alive but one of several men their mother slept with. Sadly, the premise isn't, "Hey, mom is sex positive and didn't understand birth control." It's more like, "Our mom was a whore." Hilarious. Stars J. K. Simmons, Terry Bradshaw, Ving Rhames.

February

Feb. 3

Rings

PG-13 | Horror

We've got a fresh director (F. Javier Gutierrez), three writers (Jacob Aaron Estes, Akiva Goldman, David Loucka), and actors Johnny Galecki and Aimee Teegarden new to the franchise, but this is still just a movie about people who die after watching a bad film.

The Space Between Us

Drama | PG-13

Asa Butterfield stars as a kid raised from birth on Mars, who travels back to Earth to visit his Skype pal, Tulsa (Britt Robertson). But his heart can't handle the gravity. Oh. My. God. That's going to be a metaphor! Get out the Kleenex, kids.

Renegades

PG-13 | Action

Five soldiers skip out on their mission so they can scuba dive for Nazi gold at the bottom of a lake — which was created when the townspeople decided to blow up a dam and flood their own village! My kid brother and I couldn't have written a better story for our toy action figures. Stars J. K. Simmons, and five hot guys, instead of G.I. Joe, Gumby, Pokey, LEGO Dude, Godzilla and Strawberry Shortcake, like it should have.

The Comedian

R | Comedy

Ooof, this looks like one of those sad clown movies. Our Pierrot is Jackie (Robert DeNiro), an old stand up comic whose routine is built upon insults — a schtick that doesn't work so well these days. He makes friends with a younger woman (Leslie Mann) and struggles with the fact that his audience is only steps from the grave. Stars Danny DeVito, Cloris Leachman, Harvey Keitel, Hannibal Buress, Billy Crystal and Edie Falco.

I Am Not Your Negro

PG-13 | Documentary

Director Raoul Peck brings to life the unfinished novel "Remember This House" by late writer James Baldwin. Samuel L. Jackson narrates this examination of modern race relations in the United States, through Baldwin's memory of his friends, civil rights leaders Malcolm X, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. Peck's film has garnered nearly universal praise for the richness of the storytelling, drawn mostly from Baldwin's writing and archival footage, tracing the path from the 1960s to today's Black Lives Matter movement.

Feb. 10

The LEGO Batman Movie

PG | Animation

We return to the LEGO universe for an adventure with the breakaway star of "The LEGO Movie," LEGO Batman. It may or may not surpass the fun of its LEGO predecessor, but it'll surely be better than some of the other Batman movies. (Sorry, Clooney.) Voice work by Will Arnett, Ralph Fiennes, Mariah Carey, Rosario Dawson, Michael Cera, and Zach Galifianakis.

John Wick: Chapter 2

NR | Action

Here's the eight zillionth example of a sequel that might not be as good as the original, and I know Vin Diesel is fabulous, but if the second John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is as slick and lively as the first, it'll still be better than the rest of the action flicks in front of us this spring. Also stars Ian McShane, Peter Stormare, Laurence Fishburne, John Leguizamo, Common, Bridget Moynahan, and Ruby Rose. Fun facts: the director of both installments, Chad Stahelski, was a stuntman who often doubled for Reeves, yes, in "The Matrix," and was the stunt double for Brandon Lee in "The Crow." And then Stahelski's directorial debut restarts Keanu's action career and is an adrenaline flick even critics like. Awesome.

A United Kingdom

PG-13 | Drama

David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike take on the story of a black Botswanan prince who chooses a white British lady as his wife and future queen in the 1940s, stirring up animosity from their families and countries. Directed by Amma Asante, an English director whose first two films, "Belle" and "A Way of Life," were very well received.

Man, it looks so good on paper ... Charlie Day and Ice Cube play teachers prepping to square off in the high school parking lot after Day gets Cube's character fired. It stars Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell and Christina Hendricks sporting pretty sick butterfly knife-work, but I have a sinking feeling the comedy is gonna be trite.

Patient Zero

NR | Horror

After a global pandemic, most of humankind are zombies, but like super smart zombies, not those mouth-breathers we're used to seeing on television. Matt Smith (who?) plays an asymptomatic guy who can speak the new zombie language and leads hottie Doctor Rose (Natalie Dormer) and her crack team of pathologists to Patient Zero, hoping for a cure.

A Cure for Wellness

R | Horror

That Brit-filled zombie movie up there doesn't seem half as terrifying as Gore Verbinski's new flick, wherein business puppy Dane DeHaan is sent to a remote spa in the Swiss Alps to retrieve his CEO, only to get stuck there, waiting for the cure ... I guess that doesn't sound scary, but there are a LOT of flippin' snakes in this flippin' movie.

Feb. 24

Rock Dog

PG | Animated

A dog wants to pursue his passion for music instead of guard sheep. Voicework by Luke Wilson, Eddie Izzard, J. K. Simmons, Kenan Thompson, Sam Elliott and Lewis Black. Lewis. Black. The most curmudgeonly comic I can think of is voicing a cartoon character.

Get Out

NR | Horror

Jordan Peele may have needed to cleanse his creative palette after five years of comedy, and the horror genre may benefit hugely for it. Peele's first film focuses on Chris and Rose, a cute interracial couple (Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams) on their way to the suburbs to meet her parents, Dean and Missy (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener). Chris only encounters three other black people during his visit — Georgina and Walter (Betty Gabriel and Marcus Henderson) who work for the parents, and an extremely awkward guest at a party (Keith Stanfield). Soon he learns the predominantly white area has had several black men go missing, but the second Chris decides to get out, everything and everyone prevents it. Peele said in an interview with Forbes that his goal was to build terror while dealing with "everything from the subtle racism that many people may not know exists on a day-to-day basis ... To the more extreme racism and everything in between. When I talk about movies like 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'Stepford Wives,' I really noticed that these movies were able to address fears surrounding the women's lib movement in a way that was engaging, not preachy, but fun. It occurred to me that no one's really made a thriller about race, since maybe 'Night of the Living Dead'"

Tulip Fever

NR | Drama

And now for something completely different ... Alicia Vikander stars as a young bride married off to an old, funky Dutchman (Christoph Waltz) and begins an affair with her portrait painter (Dane DeHaan) that leads to all kinds of high drama right smack in the middle of high tulip season. Justin Chadwick ("The Other Boleyn Girl") directs this adaptation of Deborah Moggach's novel. Also stars Cara Delevingne, Dame Judi Dench and Zach Galifianakis. WHAT? Yes.

Bitter Harvest

R | Drama

This is essentially a tortured love story between two peasants (Max Irons and Samantha Barks) set in the early 1930s as Stalin steals the Ukrainian harvest to feed his troops. The moment it becomes clear Stalin is happy to starve all of Ukraine, the lovers are separated in order to resist. Also stars Terrence Stamp, Barry Pepper, Tom Austen and Gary Oliver as Stalin.

March

March 3

Logan

R | Action

Hugh Jackman reprises his role as the coolest X-man, Wolverine, in a film for which he reportedly took a sizeable pay cut to ensure it was rated R and finally, properly Wolverine-ish. The premise: Logan is taking care of Professor X (Patrick Stewart) somewhere in Mexico when a little mutant teen (Dafne Keen) arrives, bringing with her a ton of trouble. Please, please let this be as amazing as it could be.

Sam Worthington plays Mack Phillips, a man in danger of losing what's left of his family (Radha Mitchell) and sanity after his young daughter (Megan Charpentier) is kidnapped and murdered. When he is invited to meet with God, he gets the opportunity to ask all the questions and vent all the frustrations he's had. Also stars Graham Greene, Ryan Robbins, Tim McGraw, Avraham Aviv Alush and Academy Award-winner Octavia Spencer.

Table 19

PG-13 | Comedy

Because the Duplass brothers wrote this film but didn't direct it (that honor went to Jeffrey Blitz) it looks more like a straight-up, rehearsed rom-com than a unique combination of guided plot and free improv. Anyway. In this flick, Anna Kendrick plays a one-time maid of honor (she was fired after the best man (Wyatt Russell) dumped her) who decides to attend the wedding as a commoner and finds she's been seated at a table with total weirdos (Lisa Kudrow, Stephen Marchant, Craig Robinson, Tony Revolori and June Squibb.)

T2: Trainspotting

NR | Drama

We catch up with Spud (Ewen Bremner), Renton (Ewan McGregor), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) two decades after we last saw them, as Renton returns home to Scotland right as Begbie is released from prison. Danny Boyle directs the sequel to his much beloved flick, "Trainspotting," the one that put him on the map.

March 10

Kong: Skull Island

PG-13 | Action

John Goodman plays a baddie who tricks both military dudes and scientists (Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Toby Kebbell, Tian Jing) into an exploratory mission to an uncharted island. After dropping a few bombs, the group discovers the island is inhabited by massive reptiles, a tribe of indigenous people in yellow facepaint, John C. Reilly, and the biggest gorilla you've ever seen. Ah, just like that house I rented in college.

The Last Word

R | Comedy

Shirley MacLaine plays an older woman obsessed with ensuring her obituary is glowing. To that end, she enlists the help of the local obit writer (Amanda Seyfried) to contact people in her past, and discovers she's been a controlling jerkface to virtually everyone. She takes the opportunity to mold a youth, pursue a passion, and be just a little bit friendlier.

Either the flick Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump put together here about a warehouse full of people with different accents, allegiances and firearms is gonna be a thrillingly claustrophobic exploration of the classic narrative Man vs. Man, or it'll be an excruciating hour and a half of people exchanging witticisms and bullets. Martin Scorsese executive produced, so let's hope for the former. Stars Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy, Sharlto Copley, Babou Ceesay, and Enzo Cilenti.

The Belko Experiment

R | Thriller

An office full of employees is locked inside the building and told over the intercom if they don't kill 30 people themselves, 60 will die. It's a pretty extreme way to hash out who to layoff, but I'm guessing it's also fairly effective. Stars Tony Goldwyn, John Gallagher Jr., Sean Gunn and Melonie Diaz.

March 24

Power Rangers

NR | Action

High school kids get super powers from messing around in a cave they shouldn't have been in, then have to fight sci-fi baddies to save the world. Stars Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Banks and some of the ugliest costumes in history.

March 31

The Boss Baby

PG | Animated

Alec Baldwin voices the title character, a loudmouth baby who has big plans to take down the CEO of puppies. Baldwin has some experience with the loudmouth baby role; I expect he'll nail it.

The Zookeeper's Wife

NR | Drama

Diane Ackerman's book hits the silver screen with Jessica Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh starring as the keepers of the Warsaw zoo, who hide group after group of Jewish families amongst the sprawling but virtually empty estate during World War II. Directed by Niki Caro ("Whale Rider").

Ghost in the Shell

NR | Action

Based on the famous late 1980s manga by Masamune Shirow, this film about a cyborg policewoman (Scarlett Johansson) hunting down an evil hacker and the truth of her creation and former life as a human has some seriously high expectations. But since it was directed by the dude (Rupert Sanders) who did "Snow White and the Huntsman," I'm a whisper nervous.

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